好色先生TV

Contractors Mace and Bouygues are battling it out for the contract on Singaporean developer and investor UOL Group鈥檚 43-storey tower scheme at 150 Bishopsgate, 好色先生TV understands.

UOL Group purchased the site, located at 142-150 Bishopsgate and facing the existing Heron Tower, for 拢97m from Heron International in 2014. Two separate industry sources said the two contractors were the only two now competing for the scheme, on which WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff is structural engineer and building services designer, among other roles.

The site has planning permission from the City of London for a 拢500m 43-storey hotel scheme, formerly known as Heron Plaza (pictured), designed by Fred Pilbrow and Lee Polisano of PLP Architecture (previously partners of KPF鈥檚 London office) who also designed Heron Tower.

This comprises a purpose-built 562,000ft2 five-star hotel, residential apartments and a retail component. The construction value is not known.

The tower is a key part of a cluster of planned towers in the city, including the 62-storey PLP-designed 22 Bishopsgate, KPF鈥檚 鈥楽calpel鈥� tower at 52 Lime Street and Eric Parry鈥檚 310m scheme for 1 Undershaft.

Bouygues recently won the 拢1bn residential-led third phase development of Battersea Power Station. Aidan McLeod, project manager at Battersea Power Station Development Company (BPSDC), told 好色先生TV that Bouygues won it due to it being able to deliver the building鈥檚 concrete frames itself without having to subcontract it out.

Meanwhile, Mace has recently been awarded the 拢400m contract for the redevelopment of Tottenham Hotspur鈥檚 White Hart Lane stadium and the first stage of TH Real Estate鈥檚 拢400m Gotham City development at 40 Leadenhall.

An industry source said: 鈥淥nly a handful of contractors have the ability to deliver towers in London and, historically, the competition has been fairly tight with the same names cropping up for new projects time and again. People might have thought that Manhattan Loft was a one-off for Bouygues, but over the last couple of years they鈥檝e been getting shortlisted for more projects like this.鈥�

Gwee Lian Kheng, group chief executive of UOL Group, has previously said the development is part of the firm鈥檚 overseas expansion plans. Speaking in 2014, he said: 鈥淲e look forward to establishing good rapport with the local community as we embark on the development of this project.鈥�

UOL Group was unavailable for comment, and Mace and Bouygues declined to comment.